Gods Will Fall

Make your own myths.

This debut original project from British team Clever Beams brings fresh solutions to a tried formula, and definitely comes out on top. Gods Will Fall is a pretty, engrossing, and truly challenging dungeon crawler.

Rarely do you get the chance to kill the world's most famous water-based creature. No, not Flipper. While playing through Gods Will Fall, I've finally been able to prove the existence of and then kill Nessie, making it clear why we've never seen the mythical beast up north in Scotland. Why? All along Nessie was acting as a god in a land torn between being based on Norse or Scot mythology.

Despite a sliding scale of difficulty and cheap boss tactics, Gods Will Fall has the improbable ability to endear itself to those it hurts most. Both masochists and newcomers alike will find something to love in this short, but challenging, Celtic ass-kicker.

For the most part I’ve found Gods Will Fall to be an enjoyable experience despite some frustrations. Many of its gods are ugly but it has a charming art style otherwise, while a sinister soundtrack perfectly sets the tone. And while the combat could do with some tweaking to make your bigger warriors feel more useful, it’s generally fair and fun. So, if you’re into rogue-likes and want a game that tries something new with the formula, you could do far worse than attempt to lead your band of warriors to success in Gods Will Fall.

Gods Will Fall's smattering of influences and banal title undersell some of its more brilliant design decisions, all of which work together to deliver one of the more imaginative and accomplished roguelikes in recent memory.

While it has some positive elements that may still make it worth checking out, Gods Will Fall's procedurally generated difficulty hurts itself more than it really helps in the long run.

After 1000 years of cruelty and suffering under the oppressive reigns of the gods, mankind decides to fight back. Gods Will Fall allows players to take control of 8 Celtic warriors who are ready to end the blind worship of the gods and take fate into their own hands. Your journey will take you across the realm of the gods to take them down in single combat or die trying.

Despite its faults, I did enjoy the brief amount of time I spent with the game, and I feel like it has a lot of potential thanks to a distinct premise. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough in Gods Will Falls world or gameplay that warrants me giving it a glaring recommendation, at least in its current state.

Gods Will Fall is a good-looking and atmospheric roguelike, but its weak controls and repetitive nature make it hard to replay.

Games are all about turning lopsided battles in your favor. Whether you’re fighting empires, armies, or incredible monsters, it’s your chance to do something otherwise impossible. Gods Will Fall presents you with an impossible task that truly feels beyond the reach of most human beings. Whether this Sisyphean labor appeals to you is a matter of personal taste and penchant for pain. More than anything else, I learned that I’ve lost my appetite for suffering through video games.

What do you do if all of your local omnipotent and omnipresent deities are being unfair and downright mean to you? If your answer is to pile an army of people into boats and try to assault the island that houses all of these gods, you may want to rethink that idea because these godly folks already know what you are planning and can control the weather. Being out on the open sea is probably not a great place to be when you piss off a god, and they’ll toss you around like a rubber duck in a bath tub, leaving very few of your cohorts left breathing.